The Parthenon and the Elgin Marbles

Preface

The response to the Greek government's demand for the return to Greece
of the sculptures of the Parthenon, now in the British Museum, has been
so encouraging that it has given rise to hopes that the Elgin Marbles,
as they have come to be known, may indeed one day be restored to their
rightful home.
The favourable response has come from UNESCO and from public opinion world-wide, including Britain.
For the time being, however, the British government and the authorities
of the British Museum do not agree that the marbles should be returned.
They base their stand on the argument that if the Parthenon sculptures
were returned, it would set a precedent by which all the great museums
of the world would ultimately have to return their treasures to their
country of origin.
Nevertheless, this argument cannot apply to the Elgin Marbles because they are an inseparable part of the Parthenon and cannot be compared to such things as Egyptian obelisks,
pharaoh's mummies, Mesopotamian tablets or Easter Island monoliths 
not even with other Greek masterpieces such as the Winged Victory of
Samothrace or the Venus de Milo.
Classical scholars and art historians are unanimous in declaring the
Parthenon to be a unique example of Greek classical art. Those who visit
it today see it without the sculptures and many are doubtless unaware
that they even exist. Yet the marbles and the Parthenon, together, form
part of their cultural heritage and they are prevented from appreciating
and understanding its architectural value and aesthetic worth to the full.
The aim of this booklet is to explain why that masterpiece of classical
art is so important that it has become a symbol of aesthetic beauty,
architectural perfection and harmony with the environment as well as of
pure reason and democracy, and make the general public even more
responsive to the demands now being made for the return of its missing
parts.

Chapter 1

Notes on the uniqueness of the Parthenon

The Parthenon is a representative example of the high degree of architectural accomplishment attained by the 5th century B.C.
Although straight lines seem to prevail in the architectural form of the
Parthenon, there is actually not one single straight line in it. A
simple test is to place a hat at the end of the pedestal base of a row
of columns and go to the other end of the row. The hat cannot be seen
because the pedestal base is curvilinear. Another example of the
aesthetic and optical rules that governed its construction is the fact
that the Parthenon's corner columns are slightly larger in diameter than
the others. This was done in deference to the knowledge that the more
well-lighted an object is, the less voluminous it will appear. Thus, to
the viewer, all the columns appear to be of the same thickness. What is
even more amazing is that the ancient architects knew exactly how much
thicker a corner column should be to achieve this effect and how much
closer it needed to be placed to the adjacent column than the distance
between each of the other columns.
The architects of the Parthenon avoided straight lines because there are
no straight lines in nature. By not having any, therefore, the temple
blended more harmoniously into its surroundings.
Another ingenious method used in the Parthenon to make the marble look
more malleable and more alive than inanimate stone was to create an
almost imperceptible swelling around the mid-shafts of the temple's 46
outer columns which the ancients called "entasis" or tension. It gives
the impression that the swelling has been caused by the weight the
columns have to support.
Also, the temple columns are not completely vertical but lean slightly
inwards and all these deviations from the vertical or the horizontal
have been calculated with mathematical exactitude.
These are only some of the aesthetic and architectural features of the
Parthenon, some of which modern science has still been unable to
explain. It is believed that if a building similar to the Parthenon were
to be erected today with the same overall dimensions, it would look
smaller than the classical temple because it would be lacking these
refinements.
Another remarkable feature is the perfection of all 400 figures of the
temple frieze, attesting to the fact that Pheidias's apprentices and
assistants, who worked with him on the decoration of the Parthenon, were
just as accomplished artists as he was.

Chapter 2

The History of the Parthenon

After their victory against the Persians at Plataea in 479 B.C., the
Athenians returned to their abandoned city and found all the buildings
on the Acropolis had been laid waste.
Themistocles, Aristides and Kimon successively vied with each other in rebuilding the city. But Pericles surpassed them all.
Pericles put the prosperity that accrued to Athens in the middle of the
5th century B.C. to good use by beautifying the city with monuments that
would do credit to its fame. He wanted to make Athens an artistic and
cultural as well as a political pan-hellenic centre. And as Plutarch
remarks: "...the occasions and services of these public works
distributed plenty through every age and condition."
He adds:

"As then grew the works up, no less stately in size than
exquisite in form, the workmen striving to outvie the material and the
design with the beauty of their workmanship, yet the most wonderful
thing of all was the rapidity of their execution...For which reason
Pericles' works are especially admired, as having been made quickly, to
last long. For every particular piece of his work was immediately, even
at that time, for its beauty and elegance, antique; and yet in its
vigour and freshness looks to this day as if it were just executed."

During the thirty years of the Pericles' rule the following buildings
were erected: the Parthenon and the Propylaea on the Acropolis; the
Poikele Stoa and the Temple of Hephaestus in the Agora; the Odeon at the
foot of the Acropolis; the temple of Poseidon at Sounion and the temple
of Nemesis at Ramnous. The general artistic supervision of the
Acropolis buildings was assigned to Pheidias, who distinguished himself
by producing decorations that were unique in magnificence, harmony and
grace. Ictinus and Callicrates were in charge of the actual
construction. The Parthenon had top priority in the reconstruction plans
of the city.
Work on the Parthenon began in 447 B.C. and as we know it was dedicated
to the goddess Athena in 432 B.C., we may assume it took 15 years to
build. This is a remarkably short time when one considers the
application of theoretical concepts and principles of architecture, some
of which are still unknown to us; the very high artistic standard of
the monument and the large number of sculptures that decorated it. On
the frieze alone there were 400 human and 200 animal figures of unique
expression and technique.
In 450 A.D. the Parthenon was turned into a Christian church dedicated
to the Virgin Mary. It was not greatly altered, with the exception of
the removal of some sculptures on the eastern side to make way for the
apse of the Christian church. When the Franks occupied Athens in 1204,
they turned the Parthenon into a Catholic church and when the Turks
arrived in 1458 the Parthenon became a mosque with Turkish houses built
all around it.
In 1674, the French ambassador to the Sublime Porte in Constantinople,
the Marquis de Nointel, paid a visit to Athens accompanied by Jacques
Carrey, an artist, who spent two weeks making sketches and drawings of
the Parthenon. However hastily-drawn and imperfect these records may
have been, they ar important to our knowledge of the Acropolis. Now
preserved in the Paris Library, the Carrey drawings happened to be made
only 13 years before the explosion of a powder magazine partly destroyed
the Parthenon during the siege of the Venetian general Francesco
Morosini in 1687. Morosini's bombardment is made more reprehensible by
the fact that he knew the Turks were storing gunpowder on the Acropolis.
Carrey's drawings reveal that up to 1674 the Parthenon had remained
intact. The most notable of Carrey's drawings is that of the west
pediment which depicted the legendary quarrel between Athena and
Poseidon for the consecration of the city. When he captured the
Acropolis, Morosini tried to remove these sculptures. The workmen's
ropes broke, however, as the sculptures were being lowered to the ground
and the figure of Poseidon and the horses of his chariot were smashed
on the ground. The trunk of Poseidon's body was later found buried in
the soil and escaped the notice of Lord Elgin, which is why it is now in
the Acropolis Museum and not in London.

Chapter 3

The Stripping of the Parthenon

Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin, was appointed British ambassador at
Constantinople in 1799 after serving as envoy in Brussels and Berlin.
He decided that during this ambassadorship he would put into effect a
plan he himself admits he had had ever since he was young ...to be of
service to the Arts by making his countrymen more familiar with Greek
antiquities. With the help of his private secretary, William Richard
Hamilton, who later became the British minister at Naples, he put
together a team of painters, architects and moulders. With Giovanni
Battista Lusieri (a Neapolitan artist who had been commissioned to paint
the Greek antiquities at Agrigento in Sicily for the King of Naples) in
charge, the team was sent by Hamilton to Lord Elgin in Constantinople
and thence to Athens in July 1800.
The Disdar, or local Turkish commandant, allowed the artists to make
drawings, at an exorbitant per diem charge, but refused to allow them to
take casts or build scaffolding for a closer look at the sculptures.
Lusieri went back to Constantinople and persuaded Elgin that they could
not work without a firman, or authority, from the Turkish government.
Elgin obtained one without difficulty from the Sultan and sent it to
Lusieri but it never arrived. Meanwhile, the Disdar stopped all
operations by Elgin's team. In May 1801, Elgin sent the embassy
chaplain, Philip Hunt, to Athens for an on-the-spot inspection. Hunt
reported that a new firman was needed and he suggested it should also
give Elgin the "liberty to take away any sculptures or inscriptions
which do not interfere with the works or walls of the Citadel."
Again, Elgin had no difficulty in obtaining such a firman since
relations between Britain and the Sublime Porte were very cordial at
that particular time, the British having expelled the French from Egypt
which was then part of the Ottoman Empire.
With the Sultan's firman in hand, which referred to the Parthenon as
"the temple of idols", Hunt went to Athens and reported to Elgin that
"entry to the Acropolis is free, as free as the streets of Athens."
The looting of the Parthenon began forthwith and the Erechtheum and the
Temple of Wingless Victory were not spared either. The sculptures were
lowered from the temple and transported by British sailors on a
gun-carriage. Lusieri noted: "Whatever I can say of their value will not
suffice. There is nothing in the world more perfect than those pieces."
At the same time, Hunt wrote to Elgin to say that if a large enough
British warship had been at Piraeus, all the Caryatids, instead of only
one, would have been carried away."
On December 26, 1801, Elgin wrote to Lusieri: "From the Acropolis I want
to have samples of each cornice, each frieze, each column capital, of
the roof decorations of the grooved pillars, of the various
architectural orders of the metopes and in general, of anything, as much
as possible." He was probably encouraged by the fact that during
Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, the French had taken with them a whole
pile of monuments from that country. Also, fearing that the French might
obstruct his work, Elgin ordered the immediate shipment of the
sculptures on the brig "Mentor" which he had bought for this purpose. He
also asked for the removal of what he called "Demosthenes' Lantern"
meaning "Diogenes' Lantern" or the Lysicrates Monument, plus the loading
on the "Mentor" of capitals from the Propylaea and as many metopes as
possible from the Parthenon. It should be noted here that whatever
metopes are now contained in the Acropolis Museum had been buried under
the debris of the 1687 explosion and were thus saved from the rapacity
of Elgin's team.
On her second voyage from Piraeus, the "Mentor" ran into a storm off
Cape Matapan and was wrecked off the island of Cythera. Seventeen cases
of antiquities went to the bottom and it took two years of arduous work
by divers to bring them up again. Another 44 cases were taken in charge
by Elgin himself at Piraeus and loaded on the warship "Diana".
Shortly afterwards, Lord Elgin happened to be in Paris when Napoleon
issued an order for the arrest of all English citizens then in France.
He was held in France until 1806 but even from there he was able to
continue his nefarious work through his agents. It was during this time
that one of the Caryatids was removed, as well as a corner column of the
Erechtheum, part of the frieze of the Parthenon, many inscriptions and
hundreds of vases. Another two ships were loaded with antiquities found
by Lusieri while excavating in Athens and its suburbs. They included
many vases, 120 of which ended up in the possession of Ali Pasha of
Yannina who, in turn, presented them to Napoleon.
Lusieri's incredible activity continued until 1810 when a Hydriot ship
was loaded with antiquities excavated on the Hill of the Pnyx by Lord
Aberdeen who later became Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister of
Britain.
The last load carried off by Lord Elgin was on board the warship "Hydra"
which sailed for Malta with Lusieri and Lord Byron as passengers. It
was on this voyage that Lord Byron was apparently inspired to write his
poem "The Curse of Athena". During this voyage the "Hydra" crossed paths
with another vessel carrying the British architect Charles Robert
Cockerell to Aegina where he intended to despoil the ancient temple of
Aphaea. The pieces ended up in Munich but Cockerell was nevertheless
able to remove the decoration of the temple of Apollo at Figaleia in
Arcadia, another of Ictinus's masterpieces. As for the insatiable
Lusieri, he returned to Greece in 1817 to load two more warships, the
"Tagus" and the "Satellite" with gravestones, copperware and hundreds of
vases. Indeed, the loading of Greece's ancient treasures had become so
fashionable that the captain of the "Satellite" moored his ship off
Delos and removed sculptures that, following Lord Elgin's example, he
later offered to the British Museum. Elgin visited Delos in 1802 and
removed an exquisite altar from that sacred place. It can now be seen in
the ancestral home of the Elgins in Scotland.
After 21 years in the service of Lord Elgin, Lusieri died in Athens and
was buried in the Capuchin monastery in the Plaka district of the city,
which was destroyed during the War of Independence. His gravestone
turned up in an excavation in 1867 and can now be seen in the yard of
the Anglican Church on Philhellinon Street (!!) in the heart of Athens.
Lusieri's death and the War of Independence that broke out in 1821 put a
stop to Elgin's depredations which had filled a total of 253 cases
despatched to London.

Chapter 4

The Elgin Marbles in London

The first 65 of the cases that had arrived in London up to January 1804
remained in Customs until 1806, the year in which Elgin, who had been
detained in France since 1803, was released. He came to London and
rented a house in Park Lane. He built a large shed in the grounds and
there began exhibiting the sculptures to selected visitors. Among them
was the artist Benjamin Robert Haydon who was so thrilled by the sight
of them that he said:

"I shall never forget the heads of the horses, their feet on
the frieze. Divine art lit my mind. I understood that those sculptures
would awake European art from its deep slumber. The sight of the
sculptures, together with the thought that the eyes of Socrates and
Plato had seen them, fascinated me. I felt I was conquered by a passion
to understand the depth of the divine art of the Greeks."

The Swiss painter Henry Fuseli, on seeing the sculptures exclaimed: "The Greeks were gods!"
The sculptures remained in the dirty and damp shed in the grounds of the
Park Lane house for years, decaying in London's humid climate. In 1811,
Elgin offered the marbles to the British government for about £60,000
but was given to understand the government was not prepared to pay more
than £30,000. Elgin thought this figure was too low since it did not
even cover his expenses. Meanwhile, he had to move from the Park Lane
house and the sculptures were placed in a coal shed in the yard of the
Duke of Devonshire's Burlington House. Among the visitors there was
Benjamin West, president of the Royal Academy, who expressed his
admiration for the exhibits.
As the collection grew, with new additions, so did its fame. Through an
advertisement in "The Times" of January 8, 1814 a hairdresser announced a
new ladies' hair style inspired by the Parthenon figures. The Greek
marbles also exerted a considerable influence on the art and
architecture of the time. Churches, public buildings and even private
homes were built in the Greek classical style.
A typical example is the St. Pancras parish church in London with its Caryatids and antiquarian copying of classical details.
Further appeals to the government by Lord Elgin met with objections from
Lord Aberdeen, who was an advisor to the British Museum. Aberdeen did
not have a very high opinion of Lord Elgin's activities in Athens, but
more about this later.
From a letter Elgin wrote on March 16, 1815, it is apparent that the
sculptures were still in the coal shed at Burlington House, "decaying
from the destructive dampness", as Elgin himself admits.
Again he offered his collection to the nation, this time at the price of
£73,600 and suggested that if this sum was considered excessive, a
parliamentary committee should be set up to assess the value of the
sculptures. The government agreed to set up such a committee but, what
with the excitement of the victory at Waterloo and other more important
events, it did not come to a decision until February 1816. In the
meantime, the collection was visited by the famous Italian sculptor,
Antonio Canova, who had been sent by the Pope at the head of a
commission charged with the task of reclaiming Italian art treasures
looted by the French.
On seeing the marbles, Canova exclaimed:

"Oh that I had but to begin again! To unlearn all that I
had learned  I now at last see what ought to form the real school of
sculpture."

The parliamentary committee's preliminary report on the Elgin Marbles ended with the following comment:

"No other country can offer such an honourable shelter to
the monuments of Pheidias and Pericles than ours where, safe from
ignorance and degradation, they shall receive the admiration and
reverence due them; they will serve as an example for rivalry and
imitation."

One MP remarked that the Elgin collection would contribute to the
development of the Arts in England and enhance the nation's prestige and
public wealth, but the view was also advanced that the collection
should be returned because it was the product of looting. But these
objections were overruled on the grounds that the Greeks were
indifferent to the fate of their monuments and were using them for
target practice. This was not true. A Jesuit monk named Babeu had
observed a Turk shooting at the monuments. After all, it is most
unlikely that a Greek would indulge in such a pastime in a fortified
place such as the Acropolis was at the time. More Turkish bullets
scarred the columns of the Propylaea and the Parthenon when a Greek
garrison was defending the Acropolis against a Turkish siege in 1826-7.
The parliamentary committee's final report was debated in the House of
Commons on June 7, 1816 and was passed by 83 votes to 30. It set a price
of £35,000 for the marbles and although this was a disappointing figure
for Elgin, he could do nothing but accept it.
The transfer of the sculptures from Burlington House to the British
Museum began at once. At first they were housed in a temporary gallery
built in the Museum grounds and opened in January 1817. In 1831 a
permanent gallery was built for the marbles, known as the Elgin Room,
and they remained there until 1915 when they were stored underground for
safety during the war until 1919. In 1928 Sir Joseph (later Lord)
Duveen offered to build a much larger gallery for the sculptures at his
own expense. This became known as the Duveen Gallery and was completed
in 1938. When the war clouds began gathering in 1939, special
precautions were taken to protect the marbles in the Gallery itself
while the frieze was transferred to an unused section of the London
Underground Railway. The Duveen Gallery was badly damaged by bombing in
1940. At the end of the war it was rebuilt and extended and reopened in
1949. Restoration work on the gallery was carried out in 1960 and an
electrostatic precipitator was installed for cleansing the air.
In December 1940 a Labour MP, Mrs. Casalet-Keir, filed a question asking
the Prime Minister, Mr Winston Churchill, whether the British
government would return the Elgin Marbles to Greece in partial
recognition of that country's valiant resistance and the sacrifices of
its people. Although pressure was exerted on Mrs. Keir to withdraw her
question, she did not do so. The British Museum then sent a memorandum
to the House which, although negative, contained two interesting points.
It acknowledged that the Acropolis has remained the most outstanding
national monument of Greece and it suggested that the question of
restoring the marbles should be a matter for the British government to
decide. More recently the British government has thrown the ball back
into the Museum's court by saying it was up to the British Museum to
decide.
At the same time that Mrs. Keir had tabled her question (December 1940),
there was a large number of letters published in "The Times" favouring
the return of the marbles to Greece. Following the British Museum's
reply to Mrs Keir's question, the Foreign Office made a conciliatory
gesture by suggesting that certain pieces could be returned after the
war, such as the Caryatid and the column from the Erechtheum. It was
also insinuated that such a gesture might make the Greeks forget their
expectations with regard to Cyprus. The Foreign Secretary at the time,
Mr Anthony Eden, however, considered the time inopportune for any firm
decision but promised the British government would look upon the matter
favourably at a future date. In January 1941, Mr Clement Attlee, who
headed the Labour Party and was a member of the coalition government and
Lord Privy Seal, replied to Mrs Keir's question by saying the British
government did not intend to take any legal steps for the return of the
Elgin Marbles to Greece.
In 1942 Mr. Churchill was again asked in Parliament whether the British
government was thinking of restoring to Greece her ancient treasures in
token of British gratitude for the significant assistance being rendered
to the Allied cause by the Greek underground forces. The Prime Minister
merely referred the questioner to Mr. Attlee's statement.
But, before we come to Greece's present claim and Britain's refusal
perhaps it would be opportune at this point to take a closer look at the
Elgin Marbles and become better acquainted with them.

Chapter 5

A Closer Look at the Elgin Marbles

The Elgin collection is composed of almost all the statues of the
pediments of the Parthenon, its best metopes, most of the frieze slabs,
one of the Caryatids, one ionic-style column from the Erechtheum and the
four slabs of the frieze of the temple of Wingless Victory which have
been replaced by plaster casts of the sculptures.
The Parthenon frieze depicts the Panathenaea pageant which was the
greatest feast of ancient Athens. During the six-day festivities, which
celebrated the fame of the Athenian state, various musical, rhetorical,
poetic and other contests were held, including horse and chariot racing
and even regattas. There were also male beauty contests and trials to
test the vigour of older men.
The most important feature of the pageant was the ceremonial procession
of the newly-woven veil of the goddess Athena which was carried aloft,
hanging from a ship's mast like a sail, on a cart to the Erechtheum. As
can be seen from the frieze, the procession of the pageant was composed
of all sorts of people such as priests, musicians, nobles, foreign
delegates, and immigrants, maidens carrying pitchers or baskets,
charioteers, horseman and animals headed for the sacrifice of the
hecatomb.
The Parthenon frieze has a total length of 160 metres (about 500 feet)
all along the four sides of the temple, and a height of about one metre
(approx. three feet). It is decorated with 400 human figures and 200
animals that all appear to be taking part in the procession and form a
continually-flowing stream that gradually swells in quantity, liveliness
and excitement without anywhere giving the impression of superfluity or
overcrowding.
The western side contains the preparations for and start of the
procession. Horsemen are preparing their horses while their servants
arrange the folds of their masters' tunics. Some horsemen are putting on
their sandals while others are mounting and still others have already
started on their way. All along the frieze the movement increases with
the horses seeming to strain at the bit while their riders, whose face
and body expressions radiate skill and confidence, easily keep them in
check. There is a magnificent sense of perspective in the rows of horses
depicted, with each figure clearly distinct from the other. The frieze
must have been extremely spectacular with its original colours and with
the reins and bronze lances that are now missing.
The sense of movement increases gradually from figure to figure along
the frieze. At one point the horses are pacing majestically, then moving
at a gallop and finally rearing on their hind legs, haughty and
disobedient. Before them, the chariots advance manned by their
charioteers and armed men with shields. Pageant officials can be seen
along the procession giving orders and trying to organise the
participants. Elsewhere, archons or ancient heroes are depicted waiting
or watching the procession go by. Their heads were knocked off by the
Turks in 1795, but it is believed that the first figure on the left is
that of Pericles.
On the eastern side of the frieze the ceremony of the folding of the
sacred veil is shown. It takes place before the gods who are shown
attending it but are invisible to the participants. A priest, aided by a
youth, folds the veil while a priestess of Athena prepares to place one
of the two seats carried by her attendants, symbolically inviting the
gods to the ceremony.
Farther down, the twelve Olympian gods are depicted, larger than mortal
size. In ancient times they could be recognised by the objects they
held, which were made of bronze. The drill-holes for these objects can
be seen but the objects themselves are missing.
At the right, the god of love, Eros, is holding a parasol to protect his
mother, Aphrodite, from the sun. The figure of the goddess has been
almost completely destroyed. Artemis and Poseidon can also be seen. In
the next scene, Hephaestus, the lame god, is seen addressing Athena,
shown here without her helmet or her shield because she is attending a
peaceful event.
Three empty drill-holes indicate she was leaning on a bronze spear.
Further down, her father, Zeus is shown with Hera on his left, raising
her veil to look at him. Close by is the messenger goddess Iris. Her
head was found in 1889 embedded in a mediaeval wall on the Acropolis and
was thus rescued.
The faces of the other gods had been defaced before Elgin's appearance.
This can be seen from the wear of the marble where the faces used to be.
This is worth noting because the British Museum's "Historical Guide to
the Sculptures of the Parthenon" states that this would have been the
fate of the Elgin Marbles if they had not been transported to London.
In the sequence of the parade of the gods, Ares, the god of war, is
shown in a natural posture, supporting himself on one leg and holding a
spear that is now missing. On his left is the goddess Demeter with one
hand on her chin and the other holding a torch, the lower part of which
is preserved.
The entire presentation of the procession had a flowing smoothness and a
continuity that could not be breached without damaging the overall
impression it was intended to make. Among other iniquities, it is
precisely this kind of damage that has been inflicted on the frieze by
the transportation of the slabs to London. Out of its total length of
about 500 feet or 160 metres, 54 metres were taken to the British
Museum. A large part of it, however, had been destroyed before Elgin's
depredations. The same applies to the metopes which were initially 92 in
number and depicted scenes from panhellenic war legends. The metopes of
the eastern side showed the battle between the gods and the giants
while those of the western side showed scenes of Amazon fighting. Those
of the north and south sides contained scenes from Centaur battles and
from the Trojan war. The fifteen metopes in the British Museum come from
the south side, the largest part of which was destroyed by Morosini's
bombardment.
The outside periphery of the Parthenon is in Doric style while the
inside periphery is Ionic, as is the frieze. The Athenians intentionally
combined the two styles in order to express the city state's power
through the Doric and its internal culture through the Ionic. The two
sets of decorations therefore complied with tradition by having the one
in the Doric order depicting war myths and the other one in the Ionic
order, inspired by scenes of entertainment, peace and spiritual
attainment.
With regard to the pediments of the Parthenon, we know from Pausanias'
description that the eastern pediment showed the birth of Athena out of
the head of Zeus with the other gods witnessing the event in amazement.
The western pediment showed the quarrel between Athena and Poseidon over
the consecration of the city of Cecrops. It is to be noted that the
statues of the pediment, of huge size and now exhibited at the British
Museum, are showing all the signs of manifest decay caused by a century
and a half's exposure to the fog and smoke of the British capital. It
was only in 1960 that equipment was installed in the Duveen Gallery to
purify the air while the pollution-free atmosphere of London is only a
recent achievement. On the other hand, the trunk of the statue of
Poseidon, the only statue from the pediment now in the Acropolis Museum,
shows no signs of decay from air pollution which is only a recent
phenomenon in Athens.
The far corner of the western pediment depicts the Ilissus river in
human form. The river god also shows signs of decay from the London
atmosphere which cannot be seen on other Pheidias sculptures in Athens.
He is supporting himself on his left arm, raising himself to watch the
proceedings in the centre of the pediment. The anatomical detail and
accuracy of the muscles, sinews, and bone structure carved out of the
marble on this statue is astounding to see. But by far the greatest
damage inflicted on Pheidias' sculptures in the British Museum is the
fact that they have been removed from their natural environment and from
the space which they were intended to occupy. This has deprived them of
a very great deal of their aesthetic value. Here is what the British
traveller Edward Daniel Clarke had to say about the subject:

"At the eastern gable there was a horse head appearing
to be springing from the soil after Poseidon had pierced the earth with
his trident while quarrelling with Athena over the patronage of the
city. The horse head was made and placed by Pheidias in such a way as to
appear to those looking at it from below, as if it were rising from the
abyss, foaming and struggling to free itself from the suffocating
position, with such a vivid movement as befitted the situation. The
perspective of the sculpture, its harmony and deliberate intentions for
the dimensions, all the strength and impression of the composition
depend on the viewing of the work in relation to that exact distance and
optical angle which Pheidias himself had calculated."

In order to achieve his masterly effects, Pheidias ordained that the
lower part of the frieze decorations should have a depth of only three
centimetres, while the upper part has a depth of 5.5 cm. The frieze
figures also stoop slightly downwards. It is pitiful to hear some people
say the Parthenon sculptures were removed in order to save them, with
total disregard for the aesthetic damage involved.

Chapter 6

The British Refusal to Return the Marbles

The British arguments against returning the marbles are first, that they
were bought legitimately from the Turks on the basis of a legal
document (the Sultan's firman); secondly, that they removed them with
the object of saving them from total destruction and, thirdly, that the
Greeks were indifferent to the fate of their ancient treasures. Since
atmospheric pollution has come to plague the Athens area the added
argument is now advanced that the marbles are better off in the clear
and unpolluted air of London. These arguments were used as lately as
November 1983 after the official Greek demand for the return of the
sculptures and were repeated in the House of Commons by the spokesperson
for the British government.
To deal with these arguments one by one, the first one is invalid
because any purchase from the conqueror in a conquered land is
tantamount to buying stolen articles from a thief or a robber. In any
case, in all the correspondence and documentation relating to the Elgin
Marbles, no actual purchase is mentioned but only bribes consisting of
such things as jewel-studded pistols, an Arab horse, a watch, a
telescope and British-made leather reins. These gifts were made to the
Turkish garrison commander of the Acropolis, the Cadi of Athens and even
to Ali Pasha of Yannina, for Elgin did not limit himself to looting the
Acropolis but sent his agents to Epirus and to the Peloponnese as well,
to pick up any antiquities they could find.
As for saving the sculptures from destruction, Elgin did not only cause
irreparable damage to the Parthenon and the Erechtheum by stripping them
of their decorations but also mutilated the sculptures by sawing some
of them in half in order to reduce their weight and facilitate their
transport. Thus, the column capital of the Parthenon, the Erechtheum
cornice and many metopes and slabs were sawn and sliced. And Elgin would
not have contented himself with one caryatid but would have removed the
entire colonnade if a large enough ship had been at hand to transport
it. Even so, the removal of the single Caryatid was enough to upset the
stability of the monument.
As to the third argument, concerning the indifference of the Greeks to
their ancient treasures, there is little doubt that any Greek voice
raised in protest would have been quickly and brutally subdued by the
Turks when a similar protest by the French consul in Athens resulted in
his imprisonment.
There are many indications, however, that the Greeks grieved over their
looted treasures such as the myth that the Caryatids could be heard
wailing at night, mourning for their plundered sister, who could also be
heard lamenting from the city prison where she had been temporarily
confined after being removed from the colonnade.
There is also the story that the Greek porters who were carrying the
wooden cases containing the sculptures to Piraeus thought they could
hear cries coming from the figures in the crates and, setting them down,
refused to carry them an inch further.
Edward Dodwell, an antiquarian, classical scholar and collector, who
visited Greece early in the 19th century, reports that whenever a Greek
farmer would find an ancient sculpture in his fields, he would embed it
into the masonry above his front door, considering it to be an object of
veneration and a guardian of his home. In his book, "A Classical and
Topographical Tour through Greece", published in London in 1812, he
mentions the looting of the Acropolis and affirms that the Athenians
were lamenting the ruin of their antiquities and reviling the Turks for
giving permission to foreigners to remove them.
Early in 1812, a group of distinguished Athenians, two of whom were
members of the secret Philike Etairia (Friendly Society), founded the
Philomusical Society (Society of the Friends of Music) among the members
of which was Lord Guildford. One of the Society's aims was the
protection of ancient monuments. The Society's activities were also
encouraged by the Patriarch's office in Constantinople which instructed
the Greek clergy to protect and preserve antiquities from damage or
theft.
Further proof of the attachment of the Athenians to their monuments is
contained in a letter from Lusieri to Elgin in which he says:

"If I cannot remove the entire Pandrossium (the
colonnade of the Caryatids) I do not despair about one of the Caryatids.
But the Greeks are devoted to it." (i.e. the Pandrossium).

The final argument about air pollution in Athens cannot be accepted
because the sculptures suffered much more damage from their lengthy stay
in the heavily-polluted atmosphere of London than they would have done
if they had stayed in Athens where pollution is only a recent
phenomenon. Lord Elgin himself, in his memorandum to the House of
Commons affirms that London's dampness had caused decay to the sensitive
Pentelic marble. This was in 1816. Since then, a more severe
deterioration can be observed in the blackened sculptures of the temple
of Epicurean Apollo at the British Museum.
In any case, regardless of whether the foregoing arguments have any
validity or not, the fact remains that when an ancient work of art is
removed from its original setting, of which it forms an aesthetic and
historical part, it loses most of its value and becomes merely an item
of archaeological interest. The contention, therefore, that there are no
grounds for the return of the marbles is entirely insupportable.
Lord Byron put it very well when he said:

"The sea-ruling Britannia snatched the last spoils of Greece, that was in the throes of death."

The words of Alexander Rangavis at the meeting of the Greek
Archaeological Society on May 12, 1842 before the eastern pediment of
the Parthenon are also apt:

"What would Europe say, atremble, if one should find a
drawing by Raphael or Apelles and, unable to carry it all away, should
cut off the legs or the head of that work of art? If England, the friend
of valiant deeds, cannot carry this entire temple to her soil and, with
it, the deep blue sky under which this all-white monument stands, and
cannot carry the transparent air which bathes the temple and the
brilliant sun that gilds it -- if England cannot carry all those things
to her far-northern climate then, just as kings and commoners formerly
sent humble tokens of worship to the Parthenon and the Acropolis, so
should England send us, as a token of reverence to the cradle of
civilisation, the temple's jewels which were snatched from it and lie
now, far away and of little value, while the temple itself remains
truncated and formless."

In its various publications on the Elgin Marbles, the British Museum
presents Elgin as a lover of antiquity who dedicated himself to rescuing
Pheidias' sculptures from ultimate destruction. But the facts of the
case present a very different picture. With the Sultan's firman in hand,
Elgin seemed to think he had been given the right to take away anything
he could lay hands on. This becomes manifest from the manner in which
he went about his depredations and the way he abused his diplomatic
status. Indeed, at one point, a parliamentary committee carried out an
investigation to find out whether he had overreached his diplomatic
privileges in this respect. Furthermore, the way he disposed of the 120
vases he gave to Ali Pasha of Yannina is indicative of his "concern" for
the safety of the antiquities he was collecting. His rapacity seems to
have been shared by his agents with Thomas Lacy suggesting the removal
of the entire Pandrossium and expressing his regret that the transport
of the pieces he found in Olympia would be too expensive and Philip Hunt
voicing his grief at the fact that the two lions over the gate at
Mycenae were too heavy to carry off. In the Peloponnese, Elgin managed
to obtain from the local Turkish authorities "unlimited permission to
excavate" and he returned from there with many vases and inscriptions.
But his activities did not pass unnoticed. J. Newport MP stood up in the House of Commons and protested:

"The honourable Lord benefited of the most unjustifiable
means and committed fragrant looting. He looted what Turks and other
barbarians had considered sacred."

Another MP, H. Hammersley, suggested that the collection be bought for £25,000 and kept at the British Museum,

"in order to be returned, whenever requested to the first Greek government formed after the liberation of the country."

Hammersley also condemned Elgin for the manner in which he had acquired the collection.
Over the course of time, these protests were forgotten in Britain and
more recently, Elgin has even been represented as a protector of Greek
antiquities. But the words of Horatio Smith, the poet who called Elgin a
"marble-stealer" live on as do those of Lord Byron in "Childe Harold"
where he writes, after witnessing Elgin's looting of the Parthenon
during his stay in Athens during the winter of 1810-11:

"Blind are the eyes that do not shed tears while seeing,
O, Greece beloved, your sacred objects plundered by profane English
hands that have again wounded your aching bosom and snatched your gods,
gods that hate England's abominable north climate."

In the same poem, Byron stigmatises the pillage and the vandalism which,
he remarks, neither the Goths nor the Turks had dared perpetrate.
The publication of "Childe Harold" was accompanied by many footnotes regarding the looting. In one of them, he says:

"At this moment, 3 January 1810, besides the objects
already brought to London, a Hydran ship is waiting at Piraeus for
another load. I heard a young many saying, together with many of his
countrymen, that they are afflicted deeply, sensing the situation; Lord
Elgin may now boast of having ruined Athens."

In 1828, four years after Byron's death, his poem "The Curse of Athena"
was published for the first time in England. It had been inspired by his
stay in Athens in March 1811. In it, he calls Elgin a robber and likens
him to a Goth. In another publication, "Hermes the Erudite" (1818) we
find: "Byron and other Englishmen who toured Greece lately are naming
Elgin a shameless thief."
John Hobhouse, a friend and fellow-traveller of Byron's notes in his
book on the voyage, published in 1813, that on a wall in a chapel on the
Acropolis he saw the following carved inscription: "Quod non fecerunt
Gothi, hoc fecerunt Scoti" (What the Goths did not do, the Scots did
here)  an obvious reference to Elgin who was a Scotsman.
The argument put forward by Elgin in his time and by the present
curators of the British Museum, that the antiquities were transported
merely to be saved, is pure hypocrisy. One look at the state of the
sculptures of the temple of Epicurean Apollo in the British Museum will
convince anyone that their long stay in London has done them
considerable harm.
Another British traveller to Greece, Edward Clarke, in his book "Travel
to European Countries" published in 1811, also predicted the disastrous
effects the damp London climate would have on sculptures made from
Pentelic marble.
We are told by Forbin, a French traveller of the time, that the Caryatid
Elgin removed was the best preserved of them all. Yet, by 1965, when
the atmosphere in Athens was still relatively unpolluted, the London
Caryatid appeared more eroded than those in Athens.
Another argument advanced by the British is that by being in the British
Museum, the sculptures can be seem by many more people. This is also a
fallacy because in 1983, more than 1.2 million entrance tickets were
sold on the Acropolis and if one should add the attendance on the two
days per week which are free and that of schoolchildren and others with
free passes, the figure rises to 2,500,000 or 7,000 per day. The Duveen
Gallery could never account for that number. But even if this argument
were valid, the fact remains that it makes a very great difference to
the aesthetic value of the sculptures to see them out of context instead
of in their natural environment.

Chapter 7

Contemporary comments on Lord Elgin's looting

One of the most poignant descriptions of the actual operations on the
Acropolis by Lord Elgin's work team, under the supervision of Lusieri,
refers to the removal of the metopes. It is contained in Clarke's book,
mentioned in the previous chapter, as follows:

"I saw the marvellous sculpture (the eighth in the sequence
of detachments) being hauled from its position among the triglyps; but
while the workers were trying to adjust the direction of the movement of
the load according to the projecting descent line, part of the marble
structure subsided under the pressure of the machines and voluminous
Pentelic marble pieces collapsed noisily, scattering their white
fragments among the ruins. The Turkish Sirdar (garrison commander),
seeing the profanation, removed from his mouth the pipe he was smoking
and with his eyes full of tears, he stated resolutely: "Finished!" and
nothing would persuade him to permit the continuation of ruining the
building."

Lusieri himself, writing to Elgin on September 16, 1802 on the
acquisition of a metope depicting the abduction of a woman by a Centaur,
confesses:

"The marble caused us a lot of difficulties and I had slightly to become a barbarian."

However, in spite of the Sirdar's horror at Lusieri's barbarity, Clarke
tells us he "was poor and had to sustain a family; he could not resist
the temptation of accepting some money and brilliant promises, so,
despite his determination, he was dissuaded and he allowed the lowering
of the most valuable sculptures of the Parthenon from their positions."
Clarke also makes the points already made in the previous chapters
regarding the damage to the Parthenon from the aesthetic and statics
point of view and the damage to the parts removed, not only from
breakage during the process of detachment but from being sawn or split
into smaller pieces afterwards for easier transport. Clarke is also
aware of the fact that Pheidias and his fellow sculptors had designed
the decorations in such a way as to be seen, for their best effect, from
below. He concludes by saying:

"The lowering of the sculptures has frustrated Pheidias'
intentions. Also, the shape of the Temple suffered a damage greater
than the one suffered by Morosini's artillery. How could such an
iniquity be committed by a nation that wants to boast of its
discretional skill in arts? And they dare tell us, in a serious mien,
that the damage was done in order to rescue the sculptures from ruin;
why wasn't the English influence exercised on the Turkish government to
take measures to protect them?"

Edward Dodwell, in "A Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece", London 1812, says:

"During my stay in Athens, since the Christians had started
the work of extermination, the Turks imitated these acts still more
basely. On order of the Sirdar, the Erechtheum epistilium, towards the
Pandrossium side was lowered and placed at the fortress gates. As I
thought he, the Sidar, planned to lower still other parts of the
beautiful building, I had the courage to protest against the indecency
of the deed. The Sirdar then, showing me with his finger the Parthenon,
the Caryatids and the Erechtheum, shouted at me angrily: 'What right do
you have to complain? Where are now the marbles which your own
countrymen have taken away from these temples?' "

In refutation of the British argument that the Greeks were indifferent
to the preservation of their monuments, Dodwell also notes that the
Athenians, as well as some Turks resident in Athens, loudly lamented the
ruination and berated the Sultan for giving permission to Elgin to
carry out his plans. Dodwell goes on to say:

"I felt the grief and the humiliation of being present when
the Parthenon was being despoilt of its most exquisite sculptures and
architectural members which were thrown to the ground. I saw many
metopes being lowered. As they were strongly attached between the
triglyphs, the wonderful cornice that covered them was demolished. The
same was done to the north-east Tympanum, which was reduced to
fragments. I had made sketches of what all this had been before, and
what the glorious monuments were reduced to. Trophies of genius that had
resisted Time for more than twenty-two centuries and had avoided every
indecency, have now suffered what we shall mourn for."

Dodwell adds that the arts in England could have benefited also from
castings made out of Pheidas' sculptures and remarks that not only the
sacrilege of the detachment had been dared, but the work had been
assigned to people guided by their individual interests, people having
the disgusting impunity of mercenary agents.
The Reverend Thomas Hughes, an English clergyman, visited Athens in 1813
and in his "Travels to Sicily, Greece and Albania", published in London
in 1820, he gives a shocking picture of the plunder of the Acropolis:

"Tympana, capitals, entablature and crown, all were
lying in huge heaps that could give material for the erection of an
entire marble palace. The abduction of small parts of the Parthenon, of a
value relatively small but which previously contributed to the solidity
of the building, left that glorious edifice exposed to premature ruin
and degradation. The abduction dislodged from their original positions,
wherefrom they precisely drew their interest and beauty, many pieces
which are altogether unnecessary to the country that now owns them."

A few years later, the English painter Hugh Williams, who had visited
Greece and published a wonderful series of Greek landscapes, confessed
that the Elgin Marbles might truly have contributed to the progress of
the arts in England, but he also denied the legitimacy of the right to
uproot them from Greece. He notes:

"What can we reply to the visitor to that country which is
now deprived of a rich enjoyment, about a reward for that visitor's
wayfaring labours? A small consolation shall it be to him to be told by
us that he will find, in England, those missing Parthenon sculptures."

The damage to the appearance and the deformation of the Parthenon are
also mentioned by Lord Broughton who also accused Elgin of having
planned to remove the entire temple of Hephaestus (now known as the
Theseum).
Francis Douglas, a British MP, speaking on Lord Elgin's proposal to the
British government for the purchase of the marbles, assured the House
that the Greeks respected the remnants of their ancestral glory and
added that even the Turks had begun to appreciate their value. He
particularly condemned the amputation of whole buildings such as the
removal of the Caryatid and the corner column of the Erectheum, which,
he said, obliterated whatever value an object may have when it is
detached, even as a whole piece, from the building it belongs to. He
continued:

"On the Acropolis each sculpture seems to add something
living to our sight, reminding us of the chisel of its creator but also
of those for whom it was created." He concludes by expressing his
wonderment at the impudence of the hands that had dared to dislocate the
objects Pheidias had positioned as suggested by Pericles and remarks
that eminent foreigners such as Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand had
charged Elgin with sacrilege."

Chapter 8

British views on the return of the Elgin Marbles

When Lord Elgin submitted his second petition to the British government,
offering to sell the Parthenon sculptures, the matter was discussed in
Parliament where Sir John Newport MP said about Lord Elgin:

"The Honourable Lord has taken advantage of the most
unjustifiable means (Ed. Note: he was referring to the bribing of the
Turkish garrison commander of the Acropolis and the Cadi) and has
committed the most flagrant pillages. It was, it seems, fatal that a
representative of our country loot those objects that the Turks and
other barbarians had considered sacred."

On the same day, the speaker of Parliament noted in the calendar:

"Lord Elgin's petition has been filed. His ownership rights
on the collection have been contested; his conduct has also been
censured."

Among the first to criticise the Parthenon looter was H. Hammersley MP
who denounced the dishonesty of Lord Elgin's transaction and, as
mentioned previously, proposed that the collection be purchased but kept
at the British Museum and returned to the country from which it had
been basely removed whenever the collection was demanded by any future
Greek government without any further procedure or negotiation.
Dodwell and Clarke recommended to the government that at least the Erechtheum cornice and the Ionic column should be returned.
In 1890, an eight-page editorial by Franklin Harrison appeared in the
magazine "19th Century" entitled "Return the Elgin Marbles!" In that
article, the writer appeals to the gentle feelings of the English people
and maintains that "even if Elgin's looting is excused, the retaining
in London of parts essential to the Parthenon is no longer tolerable or
convenient; their restitution is urgent both as an act of international
justice and as an act beneficial to science and the arts."
In the same article, Harrison also maintained that the sculptures were
more dear to the Greeks than to the British, that for 2,240 years they
had formed an integral part of Greece and that therefore they were much
more sacred than the Tower of London or Westminster Abbey. He writes:

"What would be our feelings if some raider had deprived us of our national monuments?"

Further on, he remarks:

"During their transportation and their long exposure to
London's stormy weather, those marbles have sustained and are still
sustaining an irreparable damage. Only the vulgar and ignorant are
unable to grasp the difference between their shape in London's air and
in the Acropolis' clear sky."

This article inspired the Irish revolutionary Roger Casement (hanged during the First World War), to write the following verses:

Give back the Elgin marbles, let them lie
Unsullied, pure beneath the Attic sky
The smoky fingers of our northern clime
More ruin work than all ancient time.
How oft' the roar of the Piraean Sea
Through column'd hall and dusky temple stealing
Hath struck these marble ears, that now must flee
The whirling hum of London, noonward reeling.
Ah! let them hear again the sounds that float
Around Athene's shrine on morning's breeze --
The lowing ox, the bell of climbing goat
And drowsy drone of far Hymettus' breeze.
Give back the marbles; let them vigil keep
Where art still lies, over Pheidias' tomb, asleep.

Philip Sassoon, MP and private secretary to the Prime Minister at the
time, wrote in "The Times" of November 26 1928 that when he visited the
Acropolis he kept thinking that the splendid ruins of the Parthenon and
the bright air of Athens would be a more suitable place for the most
harmonious sculptures in the world, than the British Museum.
Indicative of the feelings of British philhellenes regarding the looting
of the sculptures are the remarks of William Miller in his book "The
English in Athens before 1821". He reports that J. Galt, who went to
Athens with Lord Byron in 1810, told him he had seen two ships anchored
in Piraeus Harbour. One was waiting to take a load of spoils from the
Parthenon while the other was loaded with black slaves from Africa. Galt
did not know, Miller says, which of either loads was more gruesome.
Dr. W. Black visited Athens in 1824 and heard the touching myth of the
lament of the Caryatids. Of Athens, he says whatever he had seen so far
in his lifetime could not match the archaic magnificence of the view of
that city. Passing by the house of the English consul, Black saw in the
yard some remarkable sculptures and a clay replica of the Erechtheum
Caryatid which had been sent by Elgin from England. It lay broken in
fragments, smashed by Athenians indignant at Elgin's plunder which had
necessitated the despatch of a clay replica. This comes as more proof of
the Greeks' interest in their ancestral heritage and another refutation
of the British contention that the sculptures were rescued from
impending destruction due to the indifference of the Greeks.

Chapter 9

Anglo-French wrangling over the Parthenon Sculptures

In 1776 Monsieur le Comte Choiseul de Gouffier visited Athens on his way
to take up his appointment as ambassador to the Sublime Porte in
Constantinople. He was a member of the French Academy and author of a
book entitled "Voyage Pittoresque en Grece" published in Brussels in
1824. A Greek chronicle of the time states:

"On August 10, Monsieur Choiseul de Gouffier arrived in
Athens on his way to Constantinople to take up his post as Ambassador of
France to the Sublime Porte. He was received with honours by Hadji Ali
who sent his Belumbashi to receive him with a splendidly harnessed horse
for the ambassador to ride. The Hissar Aga decked the top of the
fortress with flags."

In describing his itinerary Gouffier makes no mention of collecting or
"rescuing" antiquities, as Elgin termed it. But he did manage to obtain a
firman, as Elgin did later, to remove antiquities from the Acropolis.
In 1788 Gouffier sent to France a part of the Parthenon frieze which was
two metres (about six feet) long. A. Millin, a French archaeologist,
examined the sculptures and valued them at 80,000 francs with the
comment:

"No one has been able to surpass the Greeks in the art of
wearing their clothes in folds. In that field the Greek women were
unmatched. But this relief work proves that men, too, dressed with an
equal nobleness and grace."

Millin's assessment was used by Lord Elgin in his petition to the
British government as a yardstick for the estimation of the value of his
own frieze sculptures which were 84 metres (about 277 feet) long.
In addition to the 2-metre length of frieze, Gouffier sent to Paris one
metope from the west side of the Parthenon. Both these pieces are now in
the Louvre. Later, Gouffier secretly picked up the three fragments of
the Parthenon metope which the French consul in Athens, Louis Fauvel,
mentions as having been displaced by a storm. These pieces, together
with other antiquities, were packed in a large crate and forwarded to
Talleyrand in Paris.
But France happened to be at war with Britain at the time and the ship
carrying Gouffier's crate was seized by the British. The antiquities
were sent to London to be sold at auction as war booty. Guessing that
Lord Elgin would probably show up at the auction, Gouffier appealed to
him, as a diplomatic colleague, to allow him to obtain the broken pieces
of the metope at least. As it turned out, Elgin bought the metope and
the antiquities for the derisory sum of £24. Gouffier continued pressing
Elgin for the metope and Elgin assured him he could have it, inviting
him to London at the same time. But Gouffier died in the meantime and
the broken metope ended up in the British Museum.
This single incident has been used by the British as a pretext in
arguing that had Lord Elgin not removed the Parthenon sculptures when he
did, they would have been plundered by the French. This argument does
not stand up because neither the internal conditions in France nor that
country's relations with Turkey could have been conducive to such a
course of events.

Chapter 10

Unknown facts of Elgin's looting

A rare edition by an "anonymous" author, dated 1815 in London, can be
found in the library of the Estia of Nea Smyrni. The "anonymous" author
is William Richard Hamilton, private secretary to Lord Elgin. The book
appeared at the time when Elgin was negotiating with the British
government for the sale of his famous collection of sculptures which he
had looted from Greece, taking advantage of Turkey's need for British
support against Napoleon.
The object of the book was to stress the incomparable value of the
collection, which is described, in the text, as infinitely more valuable
than any other collection in the world. The fact that the book was
published anonymously, for obvious reasons, reveals one more facet of
Elgin's character.
However, this rare London edition contains some very interesting
information which is unknown to those who are familiar with the story of
the Elgin Marbles.
For instance, the book tells us Napoleon was very keen to acquire the
Elgin collection at any price, so that Britain would be deprived of it.
Indeed, at about that time, Napoleon had bought the famous Borghese
collection for the staggering amount of £500,000.
A more interesting fact contained in the book is that Elgin's team dug
up and looted the graves of Euripides and Aspasia. Unfortunately, the
author describes only the finds in the grave of the famous courtesan
from Miletus. They were contained in an impressive tomb, outside the
gates of Piraeus on the ancient road to Eleusis. The excavation turned
up a huge marble crater with a diameter of 1.5 metres. Inside it was a
funerary urn containing the ashes and charred bones of the woman whose
presence in Athens had so greatly influenced the city's political and
cultural life. There was a gold wreath over the ashes in the shape of
flowers made of gold.
Among the other priceless antiquities looted by Elgin in Athens and the
surrounding area are the statue of Dionysos from the theatre of the same
name, as well as the theatre's sun dial which, according to the
"anonymous" author, gave the time in the days of Sophocles and
Euripides.
Elgin also removed important architectural members from the temple of
Aphrodite at Daphni, while from the courtyard of the Athenian
Logothetis, who was British consul at the time, he acquired exceptional
ancient sculptures which decorated a fountain. Among them was an
Athenian inscription of inestimable importance to ancient Greek history,
since it contained the names of the Athenians who fell at the battle of
Potidaea. There was also a funerary inscription with the name of
Socrates.
Another bit of information provided by the book is that Elgin had
obtained permission from the Bishop of Athens to remove sculptures
embedded in the walls of churches or monasteries in Attica. He also
removed many ancient bas-reliefs and many inscriptions containing
irreplaceable historical data.
Among the works of art he plundered from the monasteries was the marble
throne of a gymnasiarch with beautiful carvings on the back depicting
the assassins of the tyrant Hipparchus, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, with
daggers in their hands and the death of Leaena who, in order not to
betray the plotters under torture, bit her tongue off.

Conclusion

In a recent article in "The Times", Roger Scranton, publisher of the
"Salisbury Review" outrageously claims that moral order dictates that
Britain should keep the Elgin Marbles because Britain is the "true heir
of Pericles' democracy"! In another issue of the "The Times" a
translation of the Sultan's firman, authorising Lord Elgin to loot the
Parthenon - the "Temple of Idols" as it is called - was published,
apparently to support the legitimacy of Elgin's actions. But instead of
strengthening the British position, these attempts at justification
merely do the opposite.
Another argument put forward is that the Elgin Marbles belong to all
Europeans since they are the heritage of a common European culture. This
argument also favours the Greek position because if the marbles are
part of a common European heritage, so is the Parthenon and since the
marbles are an integral part of that edifice, they should be returned to
it.
The Cultural Committee of the Council of Europe has recommended that the
sculptures be retained in London, where they have been adequately
preserved so far, and should not be exposed to the "polluted air of
Athens".
Also, there is a recently-accepted tradition that "certain works of art
should not be transported to a Museum in their country of origin if they
are very fragile and if they can be preserved in a different climate".
The Committee seems to ignore the fact that the marbles suffered
considerable damage in London's damp climate, as Elgin himself reports,
and they should take a look at the damage sustained by the sculptures of
the Temple of Epicurean Apollo in the hall of the same name in the
British Museum.
Moreover the Committee seems unaware of the fact that a Nitrogen
Air-Conditioning Hall has been built in Athens where the Caryatids will
be sheltered and protected from the city's pollution. Other relative
measures are being taken to preserve the Elgin Marbles if and when they
are eventually returned.
Incidentally, the recommendations of the Cultural Committee in this
respect were virtually rejected by the plenum of the Council of Europe
which has recommended to Britain and Greece to conduct negotiations for
the return of the Marbles.
In November 1983 Mr Michael Foot, then leader of the Labour opposition
in Parliament, pointed out that the methods by which the Elgin Marbles
were detached from the Parthenon and removed from Greece, without the
approval or consent of the Greek people, have been denounced by many
Englishmen, with Lord Byron in the forefront. He asked the British
government to examine seriously the Greek demand for the restitution of
the marbles to Greece since such a demand has been made by a "friendly
and democratic

Hellenic League of America

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About Us

The Hellenic League of America, HLA’s name was inspired by the many different ancient confederations of Hellenic City-states which banded together in ‘leagues’. Such famous Hellenic Leagues were the Ionian League, the Italiote League, the Arcadian League, the Achaean League, the Peloponnesian League, the Chalkidian League, the Boeotian League, the Cretan League and the Delian League. However, our main inspiration is found in the League of Corinth, commonly referred to as the Hellenic League. Originally created under Philip II of Macedon, the Hellenic League was led by Megas Alexandros in his great campaign against the Persian Empire. It is in this spirit of brotherhood and unity that the HLA takes its name.

The 16 points of Hellenic Advocacy: The 16 points of Vergina

Pan-Hellenism

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Culture ---------------------------------------------- Education

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Nationalism

Pan-Hellenism

To Foster Unity between all Hellenic-American Organizations nationwide

2. To Foster the rebirth of lost branches of Hellenism, such as Italiote Hellenism

3. To organize and promote Pan-Hellenic events and gatherings

Nationalism

To foster healthy Nationalistic feelings in Hellenic-America for our ancestral homeland, culturally and socially; preparing Hellenic-American youth for active participation in the Hellenic-American Community

2. To advocate and support a return to our Hellenic homelands by encouraging a return to the lands under the legal jurisdiction of the current Hellenic State. To advocate and support cultural awareness of our ancestral homeland of Hellas; as well as our historical Hellenic homelands of Magna Graecia, Northern Epirus, Pelagonia, Northern and Eastern Thrace, Anatolia, Pontos and the ‘Right to return’ to Cyprus after the island has been freed of all Turkish settlers and Military occupation.

3. To foster the concept of aggressive advocacy in the United States for Issues concerning Hellenism; to battle against the stigma of ‘Nationalism’

Culture

To promote and encourage interest and research in to our ancient traditions and culture